[moe]

If the legend of the mythical coder who is 10 times faster than average were true, this person would have to overcome the same set of challenges. But how can a one do this 10 times faster than his colleagues?

I am a 10x coder, although I prefer when people just refer to me as someone who gets stuff done.

The answer to your question is simple: Yes, we are faster because we overcome these challenges, because we are as much sysadmins as we are developers.

The secret sauce is to realize that the world does not end at the borders of your VM.

If you refuse to acknowledge that your webapp needs an operating system, a webserver, a cache and a database to operate and if you push the lowly "grunt-work" of setting these up to someone else then you'll never be a 10x developer. Because in that case you're depriving yourself of acquiring the magic systems knowledge that leads to all the little "ah, this could be easier"-moments.

[alnayyir]

>I am a 10x coder

Hubris makes me sad. :(

>we are faster

That's unnecessarily inclusive and doesn't convey anything of substance.

>If you refuse to acknowledge that your webapp needs an operating system, a webserver, a cache and a database to operate

>depriving yourself of acquiring the magic systems knowledge

I smell a proud C/C++ programmer.

waves ASM coder over here, we (??) asm coders can write parsing libraries that spank yours seven ways to Sunday.

Does it matter? No. That's not how you "get things done (TM)".

[moe]

Hubris makes me sad. :(

Sorry to hear that, I was merely trying to provide a frame of reference.

I smell a proud C/C++ programmer.

Way to read something into a post.

waves ASM coder over here, we (??) asm coders can write parsing libraries that spank yours seven ways to Sunday.

That's fine and may get you a nice job at a hardware company. I don't see how it's related, though.

Does it matter? No. That's not how you "get things done (TM)".

And where did I say anything to that tune?

The point I was trying to make is the opposite: As long as you consider yourself a programmer, or worse a programmer of a particular language, you're probably not a "10x coder" [who keeps coming up with these idiotic terms anyways]. It doesn't matter whether that language is C, asm, Java or Lisp.

[bestes]

I've worked with a 10x coder and he does everything moe mentioned above, even including hardware. He is disdainful of those who program, but can't maintain their own systems. One guy is not much of a sample, but many times I've seen him find solutions in hardware, OS settings, network configuration, etc. that you would never have found if you focused only on your application.

[alnayyir]

>I've seen him find solutions in hardware, OS settings, network configuration

I've done the same but I am not a 10x coder. I'm just a generalist on steroids who happens to take a fancy to asm, security, arch, and abstracted programming languages.

[habibur]

> who happens to take a fancy to asm, security, arch, and abstracted programming languages.

...that means you are a 10x coder but would not like to claim yourself though.

[alnayyir]

I'd never entertain the notion that I am equal to a great many of my programming fellows, I learn something new everyday from the people I talk to...let alone 10x better.

It's just absurd, I'm an over-diversified generalist, I'm better than no one at anything.